Good Morning!
And Happy Saturday!
Kim sent in this one. It’s a picture of “The Grade” that was discussed yesterday.
And this one is from Mumsee.
On this day in 1792 the New York Stock Exchange was founded at 70 Wall Street by 24 brokers.
In 1877 the first telephone switchboard burglar alarm was installed by Edwin T. Holmes.
In 1940 Germany occupied Brussels, Belgium and began the invasion of France.
And in 1973 the U.S. Senate Watergate Committee began its hearings.
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Quote of the Day
“Accuracy of language is one of the bulwarks of truth.”
Anna Jameson
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Today is Bill Bruford’s birthday, and tomorrow is Rick Wakeman’s. So yes, it’s Yes.
Tomorrow is Perry Como’s.
And tomorrow is also George Strait’s.
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Wandering Views 
Perry Como, now that is the television that I watched.
Morning all. Enjoy your Saturday.
Just got back from a Senior saxophone receital.
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What is your “happy place”? Sometime this morning I dreamed about the cabin “up in the country” where we used to go when I was a child. Of course in the dream it was all different. I was there as an adult and there were three houses on the property instead of the one. I was excitedly showing some friends around. None of the houses belonged to me. My mother cut a deal with one of those “Boss Hogg” types years ago, you know the type, the rich family who owns half the county? If he would give her X amount of money right then she would sign the papers transferring it to him upon her parents death.
For most of my life I have secretly wanted to go back and build my own cabin near one of the streams and have it be my weekend get away. I no longer dream about doing that. BG hasn’t been there since she was about 3 and I took Mr. P there about 2 years ago. It isn’t the same as it was in my mind. I no longer know anyone and I certainly wouldn’t tell them who my mother was. I already dealt with some of that this week.
Time to find a new happy place.
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I don’t have a “happy place”. I sometimes envy you who talk of happy childhood memories and I can’t recall any. But I know some of you have it worse. Kim talks about her alcoholic mother, while I recall a loving mother who had a hard life, but did her best.
I am not complaining. I have been immensely blessed in it all.
My happy place is right here.
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Hello, Jo. Recitals are enjoyable at least for the listeners.
Good morning to others. The furnace system is running again. That is the secret about global warming. When all the furnaces are running around the world, we then have global warming.
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At the end of Como’s sing, one of the other selections available is “Till the End of Time”. I had no way of watching TV in 1956, but I heard it on the radio. I was a senior at U. of S. Carolina and Elvera and I got officially engaged that year. Not a “happy place” but a pleasant memory.
That was a favorite song.
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I started that comment right after Jo posted but got distracted by Bosley and then husband leaving for work. Bosley managed to mess up the zipper on my hoodie so I was delayed from getting back here by zipper repair. All that to say if my comment seemed out of line with the flow of conversation that is why.
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Those pink flowers are a pirate’s bounty! What are they?
I don’t have a specific “happy place” where I could go and get away from the troubles of the world. I always carried whatever was bothering me with me, unfortunately. I did, of course, have places that were less unhappy. I enjoyed being around trees. I was happy hanging out with neighborhood children and especially when we spent hours discovering crayfish and salamanders in a nearby creek. We also discovered a dumping place and got thoroughly involved going through someone’s trash. Moms would not have approved, but they did not know about it until we arrived back home with our tresures. Also, playing under the bridge over the railroad tracks was a great adventure. None of these “happy place” activities would I have done alone so I don’t think they qualify as an answe to your question, Kim. But I look forward to hearing what others have to say. Great question!
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I am living my happy place. But I loved going up to the mountain with my family or out to the woods with my dad and brothers, where I could spend the day playing by myself if I did not want to work. I generally played.
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I really like the picture of “The Grade”,too.
One other happy group memory was the summer many of the neighborhood children hung out on my next door neighbor’s porch playing marathon Monopoly games. My bedroom in our house looked down on that porch so it wasn’t like I was physically far from home, but being caught up in the likes of Mediterranean Ave. and Boardwalk and occasionally doing time in jail took me out of my routine world.
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Mumsee’s is a happy memory. All I has to do was cook for people who ate it without complaint That and watch out for snakes. The Grade is much more impressive and scary than that photo shows. Notice I didn’t get out of the car and take a photo looking DOWN!
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I, too, am living in my happy place for which I am continually grateful. I still find it hard to believe that God has blessed us with this home. It’s certainly not perfect and has a lot of work to be done on it, but… after waiting 27 years for “our” home, it’s pretty unbelievable that this place is it.
We’re heading to the greenhouse today for vegetable plants (tomatoes, pumpkins, peppers, cucumbers, etc.) The soil is still too cold to plant anything but peas and spinach, but that might get done this long weekend too.
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Evening, Jo. Good morning, all.
We are having such fun reminiscing and hanging out with one another!
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Good Morning…those are hydrangeas are they not? The grade appears to be a place that would not be a “happy place” for me! Scary! 🙂
I love your thought provoking Qod Kim…I would have to say living in this quiet Forest is a most happy place for me…after venturing into town I cannot wait to get back home…once I come up over the hill from town and all I can see is a panoramic view of the Rockies….then I drive into the trees…well…that’s when I can finally breathe!
I am thankful for sweet childhood memories…playing outdoors until the streetlights came on…lots of friends on our block…if you ask anyone who grew up in our neighborhood…they would say we had an idyllic 50’s/60’s midwest bringing up…we didn’t have much but made the best with what we had. My Daddy worked hard to provide for his family and Mom did her best to raise her three girls…
As a child my happiest moments were Christmas gatherings with family…my parents made Christmas the happiest of times…I am grateful….and now I’m crying….
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When I was a child, we had fruiting mulberry trees in the backyard, three of them, almost in a triangular shape around the backyard. We also had a male mulberry in the front yard. Well, I “took them for granted” in that I didn’t realize how rare a good climbing tree is, and mulberries are good climbing trees. The one in the rear of the backyard was too small to climb, but the other two females were climbable. The male, in the front of the front yard, was a very large tree, and actually, for my non-athletic self, a little hard to get into. But I’d climb up into it and then sit in a “seat” formed by several branches coming together. If I sat too long, my “seat” fell asleep since tree branches aren’t exactly a soft seat. But in a small house with five (or more) people and a dog, there aren’t a lot of places to be alone, and I could go up into that tree and feel like I was alone. (My older brothers gradually moved out, but in my very young years there were eight of us in a small three-bedroom house, then gradually fewer until we only had the three youngest and our parents.) Sometimes other people would come out to play in the front yard, but they ignored me and I, them, and I still felt like I had some privacy to think.
When I was 13 and 14, Inca doves nested in that tree, so I’d go up there and I saw the babies in the nest. The parent would come back to the tree, and I’d watch for it to return to the nest, but it wouldn’t do so while I was there. So, knowing the babies needed food, I’d climb out of the tree and watch the feeding from the window. Sometimes I’d take a book up and read it, but more often I’d just sit and think and watch other children play up and down the street. (In those years I had no friends except one who lived the next street over.)
The tree has long since been cut down, but it was my companion for quite a few hours in my childhood.
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The Grade reminds me of the logging roads we used to go exploring on in our ’79 Firebird. Not exactly a car with enough clearance for those roads, but we managed 🙂 If you met a logging truck you would have to back up to the next pullout area. Or if you met just another passenger type vehicle, the one going up had to back down and move out of the way of the one going down. Sometimes we had a very hairy, scary ride, but, oh, the beautiful places we got to see.
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Yep, that is what it is like. It used to be the Stage coach road and what they would haul grain down to the river on, though there was also a tram to run things down on a cable. I would not have enjoyed riding behind a team of horses on that.
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Cheryl, your tree spot sounds like what I would claim, too. We had no good climbing trees in our yard, but life somehow seemed sweeter in the vicinity of trees. I do love the view from my window where I have set up my writing desk here at home. It seems like a sanctuary. And I can easily get lost in the beauty of the flowers in our yard. But houses are close together so I rarely feel alone. Most of my neighbors are home during the week. We see little of each other, but often hear each other. In an urban area it is comforting to know that if I hollered, “Help,” I would be heard.
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Sorry, that post should have been broken into paragraphs for ease of reading. Would edit if I could.
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Mulberries, I have been trying to grow those for years. The first two I planted took off with ease, but then I got goats and I had planted the mulberries in what was the goat pasture but I thought we were done with that. No more mulberries. I tried again this year up by the rhubarb but no sign of life yet. Still hopeful as I think they are late bloomers. But my memory of them is very stick on the ground, maybe that was something else.
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Yeah, that picture of the grade, though pretty, does not do it justice. Not all of the grade has a guard rail, nor so much of a margin on the roadside.
I am living in my happy place. Although there are some painful memories from my childhood, my family had nothing to do with them; so the home where I grew up is still a very happy place. I love seeing the seasons change here and each season brings memories. The spring thaw reminds me of afternoons, wading in the swamps full of melted ice, watching the insect larvae and startling frogs – we always managed to go to deep and get our rubber boots filled with cold water. In the summer, the cool shade of the maples reminds me of days spent almost entirely outside, with small picnics at lunch time with our special dishes. The autumn, with its glorious colours and carpets of fallen leaves, reminds me of long walks in the woods, exploring and naming places. The winter reminds me off sledding down the snowy little hill behind our house until the stars came out or skating on the frozen swamp in the moonlight.
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I do not mean to appear like I had a terribly unhappy childhood. I think I was not happy in school and that along with the time when my father was away in the Navy felt like a cloud hanging over my head much of the time. Because I did not know Jesus as my personal Lord, Savior and Friend I did not have that sense of security. I always felt out of sync with others. We were a military family, but not living as many do on base with commonalities with others. All my friends had their dads at home. Then I was the youngest in my class which was a big disadvantage socially. We did not live near the school, but in an area unto itself away from the main action. That was good for close connections on our street, but meant being out of the main afterschool loops and activities. I struggled with being very shy and worried about that and my tendency to blush at any little thing. That had a lot to do with my unhappiness, just feeling out of control of so many things and thinking that others did not have similar difficulties.
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Michelle, I remember you said your husband helps teach young people on Sunday. I don’t rember what age group. Does he use a curriculum? How does he pull his lessons together? Does he have an internet source for ideas? Does he receive training through your denomination? Sorry to ask so many questions. I am curious because in looking for places to submit my article about Sunday School I did not find many places that would be interested. I found a periodical for youth workers but that is older than the group I work with.
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The Perry Como song made me laugh, with its fifties American slang, but I recognised the tune as being somewhat older in origin. The melody is derived from a piece written by a French composer of the mid 1800s, Emmanuel Chabrier, who is not as well known as he deserves. As he is one of my favorite composers, here is the original source of the melody:
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No picture of any steep grade does it justice. Kind of like pictures of the Grand Canyon. Yeah, they look impressive, but nothing compared to actually standing on the rim looking in amazement at what wonderful scenery God made.
I got to do something today I’ve been wanting to for years, Every year the local hospital sponsors a run/walk across the Mississippi river, where they close off one lane of each bridge (one bridge is east bound, the other west bound) and let people run across and back, as well as walk. I walked the 5k in about 50 minutes. Awesome! If you click on the picture I took a couple of months ago, you’ll see the west bound bridge- it’s the picture on the right, six rows above Kim’s man with the fish. The east bound bridge is kind of visible in the lower left of the picture.)
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I think my happy place is reading a good novel.
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My youngest daughter and her oldest son ran their first 5k today, as well. They also did it for a charity. In their case, their church was raising money for a well in the Congo. Her nine year old was held back by her. He sprinted at the end, however, and never broke a sweat.
I used to jog a couple of miles several times a week. I did once run a few miles to find a phone to use in an emergency. I usually limit myself to walking now.
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I wouldn’t drive on the “the grade.” We have some narrow, steep, winding mountain roads here but at least they’re all paved. I don’t even like those.
Lots of different ‘happy’ places — climbing high in the evergreen tree in the front yard of a house we rented (that later was torn down for the freeway, along with our beloved tree);
The long, spacious backyard of the house we then moved into (and later purchased) with a rickety swing set with a rusted metal frame (which, with the help of a few thick blankets, doubled for playing horseback riding); an old incinerator we kids would climb to the top of to sit and talk on summer afternoons. We played everything from Davy Crockett to baseball to football to basketball in that backyard as we grew up through the years. I’m hoping some kids are still enjoying it today. 🙂
My (maternal) grandfather’s house in Iowa. Creaky wooden floors. A ceiling that leaked. (Not so happy place there was the outhouse.) My (paternal) grandmother’s house, just on the other side of the same town, and the railroad tracks that ran behind it with the sounds of the train; and a corner store just down the dirt road where she’d send me with a note of what she needed to hand to the grocer.
The field of wild flowers next to my grandfather’s house where I played hide ‘n seek with the neighbor kids whenever we were visiting. We were always barefoot.
Lake Okoboji, the favorite getaway of northwest Iowans (who called the area simply “the lakes”) where my extended family was, that had a stellar old roller rink and dance hall for the adults. My mom grew up going there as a kid & teen and it was a must-stop whenever we visited Iowa as I was growing up. We rented a little cottage there once. It’s changed a lot, I suspect, the last time I was there they were closing down the park rides for a season or two for some major renovation.
Now it’s the cliffs at the south edge of the town/peninsula where I live with the amazing views of our ocean. And the dog park, of course. 🙂 Not too pretty, but always quite happy.
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They close down our bridge over the port for a run/walk on Labor Day. It’s usually hotter than blazes that time of year, though, so I’ve never done it — but I’ve “covered” it as a work assignment. 🙂
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There’s another road to the house, right? I’d be worried on a road like that one! We drove up to Pike’s Peak one time and I was a basket case looking over the side. And the Grand Canyon made me feel unsteady.
So, maybe I’m just a coward. No surprises there.
I’ll answer in an email, Janice.
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I too could never drive the grade. When I was a child, we camped often at an Arizona campsite known as Tortilla Flat. Driving from Phoenix meant driving a switchback mountain road that was barely wide enough for two cars, and if you met a motor home coming the other way, both of you inched by each other. I once read about two motor homes meeting each other, and stopping and looking at each other while a line of cars piled up behind. Finally a brave soul from one of the cars offered to drive the “outside” vehicle and the two inched past with no room to spare. The road simply wasn’t built wide enough for two large vehicles, and being a historical road they chose not to widen it.
At ten or twelve I had a dream about that road, that we were driving along it and Dad went off the edge. The car floated down to some other road, and Dad calmly said, “Well, now we have to figure out how to get back on that road.”
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Interesting morning. First I had a massage. The massage therapist was wonderful and worked a lot on my neck and right shoulder. She used to go to my church and used to attend the Tuesday night Bible study I do. Some things happened that made her and her husband decide it was best if they left. Even as wonderful as I think my church is, it isn’t perfect. It was a very good talk. She asked me to please tell everyone hello. I think we were talking so much that my massage lasted longer than and hour.
Next I had a facial. The young woman who did it was new and was nervous. She kept apologizing so Mama Kim assured her it was OK. I only gripe on alternate Thursdays and today was Saturday so she was safe. From there I suggested that she use tea tree oil in her steamer. It smells good and has antiseptic qualities. I suggested that she not be so scared to be more aggressive in what she did. I asked if she had business cards. I told her everyone she met needed her business card. I told her to get more detailed information from her next client than she got from me–get their mailing address and send them a handwritten thank you note. She was black, I explained that my maiden name was Black and we Black girls had to stick together. When she massaged my hands I told her about the time I was so lonely and damaged and broke that all I could afford to treat myself to was a 10 dollar manicure. I cried because someone was touching me. I told her never to underestimate the power of her touch to someone. Beyond that I told her to fake knowing what she was doing, the next client wouldn’t know she was one of the first. While it wasn’t the best facial I have ever had, it was the first time the esthetician asked if she could hug me when it was all over. What could I do? I gave her a big Mama Bear hug. I have her cards and will pass some out.
Then I got a manicure and pedicure. Turns out the nail tech and I while having never met had known of each other. Our in-laws were best friends. My toes are now Friar, Friar, Pants on Fire red/orange.
From there I went to hang out by the pool with the girls. BG was not happy at first that I showed up, but she got better. I just kept talking until she looked bratty when the other girls were responding to me just fine. Now I am relaxed, tan, and happy. You just cain’t never tell the twists and turns your day will take.
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I love driving mountain roads, and miss the opportunity. There are some in southern Missouri, but nothing like the Rockies. When driving such roads, one needs to remember there is no hurry, just take it easy and slow.
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I have never been to Pikes Peak…no stinkin’ way am I going up there…Paul took my cousin and his family up there one time and he thought he had killed my cousin….poor fella stayed in the backseat of the car with his head spinnin’ and hyperventilating …..I told him he’d be sorry…it’s genetic I think!! 🙂
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Kim, you were blessed to be a blessing.
Peter, I agree, I love mountain roads, just don’t want to be in a large vehicle. Drove the Blue Ridge Parkway in a Dodge Ram Van, way too big, since I was in the passenger seat.
Happy places – I remember as a young girl we lived in a house with a lovely stairway that turned halfway up. I played there with my dolls, so happily, it was my place.
We owned two acres of woods for years and I used to nurse my babies just watching the squirrels leaping tree to tree. So peaceful
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😉
With Kim’s fixup, I expect to see her on FoxNews soon.
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I have been to Tortilla Flats and Pike’s Peak, but I never drove to them myself.
I can’t believe you think tea tree oil smells good! My husband uses it on his toenails and I hate the smell. Perhaps there are different types?
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I need to manicure Bosley’s nails. I keep getting the point that she is ready for a manicure when she gets in her kneading mode. Oouch! She did let me brush her yesterday for the longest time yet. Maybe two minutes. 🙂 she does not need any red polish on her nails because it might put ideas into her mind like seeking out more red. Oh, no! We don’t need for her to volunteer us for the Red Cross blood drive.
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Thanks, again, Michelle, for your help. Good web sites.
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Exactly the right phrase Jo! I felt like that.
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The Senior class was in charge of the service in church today. Loved the music and felt that each song was a prayer they were singing to the Lord. A Senior even gave the message and used an illustration of Joseph as they go forth. This senior lived in four countries before he was 4 and will now live in the US for college, though he is from South Korea.
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Good evening Jo.
I’m just hanging around now before going to early service. Then SS. Dale Z is teaching Song of Solomon this morning . I’m glad I’m not.
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Phos reminded me of this little bit of musical trivia
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Well that settles it, if we all go to the mountains someday for our reunion, Peter can drive the bus.
Today’s sermon is on Rom. 8:28-30. 🙂
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I am not riding a bus in the mountains unless God makes it happen. I get horribly car sick.
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Mumsee, I used to go on mission trips with a lady who got car sick. I drove the church van.
When we came to a turn that didn’t require a stop firsts, I would always slow down so that the change in direction wasn’t abrupt. She always sat in the “shotgun” seat. She was never sick on one of our trips.
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Kim, as soon as I heard the tune, I half expected to hear Elvis singing.
😉
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Chas, I have never been to Sunday School after the church service. Guess that indicates I have not been involved with large congregations. At this age I think it would be hard to adjust to that kind of schedule. But if the church went to that kind of schedule I would, too. We are still adjusting to 10:30 service and 9:15 Sunday School. So far it’s working well for me.
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If you go up Pike’s Peak, take the train!
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mumsee gets the open window.
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I get terrible motion sickness, too. Sitting in the front always helps. Some drivers are worse than others. If you don’t get it, you don’t understand how dreadful it can be.
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I got praised for my driving last year by two passengers who don’t like curvy roads. We were driving from the Tablelands down to Cairns and the curves went on for 40 minutes. I just took it nice and slow and smooth. They were so grateful, because that road could be torture.
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Belatedly going back to a question Karen had asked a week or so ago — about a theology arguing that God won’t be sovereign over all things until the second coming of Christ (I think that was the gist of it) …
It sounds like what’s called “open theism,” which gathered some steam among evangelicals in the 1980s-90s (but I haven’t heard too much about it in recent years). The argument was that God doesn’t know all things (but I’m not sure it went on to say he would know and control all things after the 2nd coming).
Anyway, that’s been bouncing around in my head and I meant to throw it out there as a possibility of what Karen had been hearing from a friend.
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Donna – I remember reading about Open Theism when it started to become somewhat popular. I’m not sure that’s what my friend was talking about, though.
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I’m thinking, Donna, that what you are talking about possibly relates to how God let the devil have his way with Job. The devil was under the illusion he was under control of everything regarding Job but his death. But God knew Job’s hesrt for He made it. God knew the outcome. God was the controlling Sovereign in His allowing of things to happen as He worked out His plans for good. So it is an illusion today when it seems the devil is in control.But God has given us His word that keeps us faithfully living in His truth. I look around and see and hear of such evil happenings in this world. It would be easy to throw up my hands in defeat saying evil has won and we are forever doomed. But praise God! I can lift my hands in praise and say, ” Even though the grass withers and the flowers fade, the word of the Lord lives forever.” His word overcomes the world and all the evil it could possibly contain..
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Sorry, I won’t drive a bus up or down a mountain road, unless it’s a wide road with no other traffic. Otherwise, nothing bigger than a 12 passenger van.
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From RC Sproul; “In the final analysis, the Devil is God’s Devil (to summarize Martin Luther) and never operates outside the Lord’s decree.”
http://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/gods-devil/
Verses quoted in our sermon today included Proverbs 16:4 (The Lord has made all for Himself, Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom); Lamentation 3:38 (Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?); Job 2:10 (Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?); Amos 3:6 (Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?)
And from my notes: “In the tapestry of God’s unfolding history, we have threads of good and threads of evil. What we learn in a verse like this (Ps. 107:25), and others like it, is that God has ordained all these threads to form the design of His purpose and pleasure.”
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57!
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